Balkan crisis Part 3 is the tenth chapter of the Black Lagoon spinoff series Eda Initial Stage. It was originally released on January 19, 2023.
Plot[]
At night, in a remote house, Eda wakes up tied to a chair with a bag over her head. Three male mujahideen stand around her and remove the bag, with the leading interrogator claiming to know that she is with the CIA. When she casually denies it, he punches her and grabs her collar, warning the "yankee" not to play dumb. He then orders her to tell them everything she knows and why she is spying on them, but Eda again denies knowing anything. Annoyed, he punches her again and grabs her hair, stating that she has some nerve and rhetorically asking how long she will be able to keep silent. Though injured, Eda smirks and insults the mujahid for using cliché phrases, but he throws her back. Before he leaves the room, he declares that they will continue the interrogation later, warning her to prepare herself since their emir will arrive soon. Getting up, Eda assesses her situation knowing that she needs to escape before the emir arrives.
As she attempts to move her tied hands under her legs, she wonders who the woman from before is, muttering that she would have escaped if not for her interference. Eda also asks herself if the veiled woman is a Muslim, but she remembers that she spoke in Serbo-Croatian, indicating a Serb background. Upon realizing this, she questions why a Serb wanted her to be captured by Bosnian Muslims. At that point, Eda hears the door open but is surprised to see the informant. She becomes angry at her presence, but the informant politely and softly advises her to be quiet. The agent wonders if her superiors sent her, which the informant denies. Eda also chastises her for getting both of them caught because she prolonged the meetings, but the informant clarifies that she was told to do it that way. Confused, she asks the informant who ordered her to do that, to which she claims that the person who recruited her did so. Realizing that she means Tobias, Eda is further confused but becomes enraged upon learning that the CIA agents wanted her to be captured by the Muslims to create an opportunity for them.
Proclaiming that she will set Eda free, the informant asks in return that she and her daughter be given asylum to the United States. She elaborates that her daughter is hiding in the nearby forest, and she gloomily asserts that she can no longer live as a slave to her husband. Eda is confused since the informant told her that her husband was killed, prompting the informant to confirm and say that her second husband is a mujahid fighter who came to Bosnia during the civil war. She recalls that the mujahideen claimed that they came to help Muslims, which was reassuring to the Bosnian Muslims at the time. Although the man she met was very attentive to her and her daughter, he dropped his kind façade upon marrying her, becoming more violent and even physically abusing her daughter. Listening to the story, Eda merely replies that she seems to have a bad eye for men. Unconcerned about the allegation, the informant brushes it off and states that they have to leave as soon as possible, asking the CIA agent if she will agree to help her. Thinking to herself, Eda tries to connect the dots between Tobias, the black-veiled woman, the informant, and the Muslim extremists. When she thinks about the informant's daughter's involvement, she immediately remembers Amber Whinberry wanting to show a picture of her own daughter to her. Moving the image out of her mind, Eda mutters that mothers seem to only know how to talk about their daughters.
Smugly smiling, she agrees to help the informant, pleasing the latter. After untying her, the informant urges Eda to take a gun that she took from one of the men. Accepting the gun, she jokes that she wishes for a gun with more bullets, especially in their situation. As she follows the informant, she notices a dead man in another room, asking the informant if she is responsible. The mother denies it and answers that her "collaborator" is responsible, intriguing Eda. The latter grabs the dead man's bullets and tells the informant that she needs to loot bullets if she is to take someone else's gun. Peeking outside the house door, the two women then begin to run to the adjacent forest but suddenly have a large light shun on them. The various mujahideen order them to freeze, revealing that they captured Nadja, much to the informant's horror, causing her to plead with Eda to lower her weapon. As she lowers her gun, the mujahideen assure their emir, Osama bin Laden, that the area is secured. Bin Laden nonchalantly looks at her while she is shocked to see him. Eda is pushed against the ground while the informant is thrown to the ground by her husband, who places his boot on her head.
As the man pins down his wife, Nadja runs toward her, causing the mother to plead with her to stay away. The interrogator kicks the child to the ground and points his rifle at her. Though the mother pleads with them to spare her daughter, the husband orders the man to shoot her. Suddenly, the interrogator is shot in the head by a sniper as are the men who point their guns at Eda. In the forest, a CIA agent orders his men to begin the attack, so the agents begin exchanging fire with the mujahideen. Subsequently, the emir is escorted away from the battle as several agents close in and kill the surviving fighters. Two agents turn the corner to shoot at the fleeing trucks, but one of the fighters fires a rocket at them, deterring the men from pursuing them. The agents assure the rest of their team that they are unharmed, so Tobias orders the rest of the squad to leave soon. Meanwhile, Eda fights back and shoots one man dead, allowing Nadja to reunite with her mother. She kills two more men, but a surviving fighter aims his rifle at the two Bosnian women, cursing them as traitors. To his right, Eda puts her gun against his head and shoots him, killing him. Kicking the dead man to the side, she asks the women if they are all right, which they confirm in hesitancy. Smiling and kneeling down, Eda introduces herself to Nadja, but her mother worries that they need to leave. Assuring her that they are safe, the CIA agent comments that their backup has already arrived and will encircle the area soon.
The three women stay put until other CIA agents come by, with Tobias seeing Eda and asking her if she was able to protect her chastity. Seeing her glare at him, Tobias is confused, but Eda blames him for the mess and demands an explanation for his plan. Smirking, he elaborates that the U.S. supported the Bosnian Muslim side since the civil war's start, but some anti-American extremists appeared among them. Being a threat to the U.S., the CIA requested the Bosnian government several times to cut ties with the extremists, but they were very reluctant to do so. In order to coax them into heeding their request, Tobias and the CIA concocted a plan for an agent to be abducted by militants so that they would have pretext to attack them. He comments that his men were unable to fell all the fighters in one fell swoop. Furious, Eda rhetorically asks if the mission went awry because she tried to escape, telling him that she would not sit idly by and remained gagged. Tobias only retorts that it would have been good if she was more careful next time, angering her. Calming her temper and wanting a favor, Eda points to the two women behind her and requests that they be granted refuge in the United States, surprising him.